Every Thursday
by miss a.j
Summary: Summer days, sticky bus seats and screaming crowds. Last arc of the “Problems and Bigger Ones” universe, sequel to “Further” and “Build Me Up, Margerinecup.”


**Every Thursday – Chapter One**

By a.j.

_School of Rock Comes to Michigan_

_Former one-hit wonder child band School of Rock from New Jersey is continuing their nation-wide tour to support their new album, "Our Friend in New York," as they finally reach Detroit._

_Formerly a defunct, obscure garage band in a little town, these teenagers were found and picked up by Dive Records after a scandal in which a fake article was passed around about front man and lead guitarist, sixteen year old Zackary Mooneyham, saying he was homosexual. While proven to be untrue, this article not only gave them a chance for fame but a devote following in the homosexual community that has helped to boost their ticket sales, which are going up as the tour goes on._

_As one teenage fan said, "There are few adult gay icons to idolize and look up to, but even fewer gay teenagers that I can look at and say 'Hey, I want to be like them.' ... But thanks to School of Rock, I can see two successful, teenage boys who love each other and know that it can happen."_

"_I'm gay, but I didn't do any of those things in that article," said Mooneyham in a recent press conference. He is currently dating Freddy Jones, drummer for School of Rock, as announced at the same press conference._

_The tour began in New York and has been working its way across the country for two weeks now. Future stops include Indianapolis, Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, Las Vegas, and their final performance in Los Angeles on August 20th._

"_We need time to recuperate and get ready for school," said Summer Hathaway, former Manager and current Road Manager of School of Rock._

_The album "Our Friend in New York" refers to Dewey Finn, the old creator of the band. After helping to create School of Rock, he moved to New York three years later to help start the School of Rock Foundation, which helps teach music to needy children._

"_It's all for Dewey," said Jones, drummer. "We wouldn't be anywhere without him."_

_The School of Rock is composed of Zackary Mooneyham, lead guitar and vocals, Katie Roberts, bass guitar, Lawrence Tsai, keyboards, and Freddy Jones, percussion. Full tour information can be found at their website, schoolofrock dot com._

…………………

Since he was a little kid, Freddy had always liked the idea of being a rock star. Even back before Dewey came to his class and pretty much changed his life forever, he had always had a picture in the back of his mind about how much he wanted to be famous, loved, adored, to have all the friends in the world. It was probably because most kids didn't like him. Not that that affected him much, not really. He was over that insecure little ten year old. But still, he had always thought it would be amazing to get onstage, perform, get laid every night, drink, smoke, do everything his parents told him not to do, then get back up in the morning and do it again. He imagined shining lights, smoky hotel rooms, screaming fans, and, above all else, lots and lots of money.

Which is why he was so disappointed when School of Rock never got him outside of a few towns over to play at some kid's bat mitzvah. Sure, it still got him a lot of sex, because as Freddy soon learned it didn't matter if you were famous or not, if you played in a rock band girls would trip over themselves to open their legs for you. And he was pretty much happy. Unfulfilled, maybe, but he liked his life.

Except that he hadn't liked the band anymore, which, yeah, sucked. Especially since his friends kept on begging him to quit the "stupid, fucking fifth-graders band" and join their "fucking hard core punk band." And he had almost joined. Almost.

Until Zack had kissed him, confused him sexually, and showed him that there could be perks to staying in the band, especially with his super hot boyfriend who had finally gotten over his righteous celibacy on Freddy's birthday and let them fuck each other senseless.

But yeah. Rock stars. Sex, drugs, rock and roll. All that jazz. In his mind it was a perfect image of a perfect life.

What he didn't imagine was what a bitch it was to drive all day for hours at a time, taking short breaks, and how hot a tour bus might be. His skin grafted to the leather, the beads of sweat trailing down his neck in a decidedly not-sexy-in-any-way-at-all manner, as Zack had been quick to inform him. Freddy had then punched him in the arm, pushed him down onto the seat and kissed him thoroughly, because what else were the perks of sitting in the back of the bus if not that you could make out in semi-privacy?

And when you were with the same people day in and day out, you really, really needed your privacy.

At least, that was how Freddy looked at it. Even if he had often been told that his view of life was rather cracked.

Whatever.

In any case, he kind of lived for those few moments where he and Zack could really and actually be alone. After all, it was kind of difficult when his mom and Zack's mom decided to be chaperones. They had tried to get Dewey, but he had said he was busy and, well, in the end Freddy was sure that their moms would have come anyway. After all, the one person they didn't trust to keep their boys safe and okay more than each other was Dewey Finn, which was really unfair, Freddy thought, because he kept them relatively safe for the three years he was with them, and really, he couldn't be held liable for what they did outside of his supervision or without him knowing. And he definitely didn't know about all of those parties they had gotten wasted at.

"This fucking sucks," Katie moaned next to him. She was wearing her most revealing shirt, not because she was attracted to any of the band members or anything but more because it was fucking hot and they all wished they could sit around in their underwear. Except that there were moms aboard and, well, then Freddy and Zack might have had problems keeping their hands to themselves, but even Lawrence voiced his wanting for as little clothes as possible. And speaking of Freddy's hot boyfriend who was currently taking a dump or whatever inside 7-11, Freddy let himself ogle a little titties before said hot boyfriend came back.

"Language, Katie," Mrs. Mooneyham said from near the front of the bus, currently busy fanning herself with her Deluxe Martha Stewart Hand-Held Fan or whatever. His own mom had long since given up on censoring the teenagers and was currently misting herself with one of those little spray misters he used to bring to school in fourth grade when it was too hot to play Dodgeball or Four Square.

"Touring fucking sucks," Freddy said, hitting his head back against the leather seat of the bus over and over. Maybe it would distract him from the heat.

"You guys wanted to be famous," Summer pointed out in her annoyingly better-than-thou voice from the middle of the bus. Predictably, she had so just been on her laptop, probably looking at the latest reviews for their album or on MySpace, whatever.

"Get the fuck off of MySpace, Summer, everybody's seen your face enough," Freddy said loud enough for her to hear. Katie giggled at his side, and his still semi-heterosexual eyes didn't miss the jiggling of her chest as she laughed.

Summer just rolled her eyes and ignored him.

"So anyway, Rock Star magazine just put up their reviews of Friend," she said, speaking to nobody in particular even though it was beyond obvious that she was really speaking to the entire bus.

"What'd they say?" Zack asked, flopping down next to Freddy after his bathroom trip or whatever. Freddy smiled and laced his fingers with the boy, which was about as far as the two were allowed to go on the bus. Ah, a seriously hot boyfriend to the left and nice, jiggly boobs to the right. There truly wasn't anything better in life, seriously.

"Talked about our history, blah blah blah," Summer droned as she read through the article, making bored noises between her quotes. "'Nice first attempt,' blah, 'unusually insightful lyrics for a teenager to write' good job Zack, 'piano work professional' great, Lawrence, blah, 'bass uncreative, but probably the fault of the music writer,' overall four out of five. Not bad, you guys."

"Wait, what about me? How could they skip over such a hot bod like mine?" Freddy asked, and if it weren't insanely hot he would have stood up and grabbed the laptop from her hands.

"Um, they didn't say anything about you, Freddy," Summer said as she smalled her laptop down. He didn't miss the blush creep up from her neck to her hairline.

"Those fugly red spots on your face had better be from the heat," he said half-jokingly, starting to get up from the seat and finding it difficult with his skin grafted to the plastic.

"Frederick!" his mother cried, whipping her head around. "Apologize to Summer!"

"Sorry," he said, rolling his eyes. "Now what the fuck did the article say about me?"

"Language," Mrs. Mooneyham said again, now flipping through the latest Modern Housewife while fanning herself at the same time, because she was great at multitasking like that.

"Look, it said the drumming was overbearing, okay?" Summer said, her voice cracking a bit. "I just didn't want you to get mad at Rock Star or Regina Whitefield or whatever."

Everybody's face turned to look at Freddy. He scrunched up his eyebrows, worked his jaw a bit, and sat back in his chair.

"Who's Regina Whitefield?" he asked after a long pause.

"The article writer," Summer said, biting at the skin at the side of her nails. She really should stop doing that, Freddy thought, it makes her look so unattractive.

"Mmm," he said, rubbing his thumb against the inside of Zack's wrist. "Well she's fucking stupid, so whatever."

If Freddy didn't know any better, he thought he could hear a collective sigh of relief from the bus.

"What the fuck did you guys think I was going to do, turn fucking green and rampage through the bus? It's too fucking hot for that, Jesus," he said, closing his eyes and wrinkling his nose. Lawrence shook his head and went back to his book or whatever, Summer smiled and turned her attention back to her laptop, Zack relaxed next to him, and Katie snorted.

"Freddy, I don't care if you've noticed or not, but you've been a huge bitch since the tour started," she said in a whisper, a cue to talk quieter so the chaperones wouldn't hear. "We all know Zack is giving you blue balls, but that doesn't mean you have to take it out on us."

"Jealous," Zack whispered in a sing-song voice, squeezing Freddy's hand and grinning at Katie.

"Hey, I can focus on more than my dick, you know," Freddy said, poking her in the arm "And Jesus, we're fucking locked up in a small, smelly bus all day with the same fucking people all fucking day and it is so fucking annoying, if you haven't noticed," he hissed, smacking her in the arm in annoyance. "Besides, it's not like you've been Miss Fucking Mary Sunshine or anything."

"Jesus, try saying 'fuck' more times in a sentence, Fred D. I don't think you're using it enough," Zack said. His voice tickled Freddy's ear, as he was now resting his head on Freddy's shoulder.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck face," Freddy said in one breath, moving his head to give a quick kiss to Zack.

"Yuck," Katie said with a smile on her face, putting her headphones on.

"Language," Mrs. Mooneyham said sleepily as they passed under the tunnel on the highway and entered Michigan.

…………………

"You're being seriously mean to Summer," Zack said that night. They had stopped at McDonalds to get a quick dinner and stop into a hotel for once, since "they needed to rest for their big concert tomorrow." They had managed to slip out and were currently holed up in the boy's room, trying their hardest to talk as quietly as possible so nobody would know they were in there.

"Zack. We finally have, like, five seconds to ourselves and you want to nag me?" Freddy asked incredulously, wishing, not for the first time, that they hadn't agreed to wasting their entire summer. "Besides, I can't help if if I get bitchy at the bitch who is still so totally hot for my boyfriend's ass even though his ass is mine, as I've claimed it four times now."

"You counted?" Zack said, trying hard not to smile as he drummed his fingers against his pant legs.

"Fuck yeah, I mean, you held out on me so long I had to keep count now. We have a lot of fucking time to make up for, no pun intented or whatever, I'm just saying."

"Who the fuck am I kidding, I counted, too. And anyway, she isn't 'hot for my ass' anymore, you fucking idiot, she's all googly-eyed at Larry now," Zack said, leaning against the stall's wall and grinning in that way that made Freddy ache for Zack and sex and Zack's sex and sex with Zack and any combination with "Zack" and "sex" again.

"Holy fuck, seriously? That is so funny and great and we should totally get them together. Seriously? I guess I was really, really distracted by all those hot shirts you've been wearing, especially when you roll the sleeves up, and I'm so glad you've stopped wearing the black shirts because they make you all sweaty and you look so pretty and hot in colors anyway, even if, yeah, you look gayer, but hey, you are, and you have to admit that Summer is so annoying sometimes so get off my fucking back, Jesus."

"Breathe," Zack said, laughing and finally putting his arms around Freddy's back. Freddy knew it was probably nasty since he had been sweating all day and his shirt was damp and he smelled and a billion other things, but fuck, he was in Zack Mooneyham's arms and they were in a very small, very confining, very hot bathroom stall, alone, and that meant something good.

"You guys?" Lawrence's voice bounced around the small, dirty bathroom. Freddy sighed and groaned in frustration. The sound, instead of showing Lawrence that the two had been foiled, caused the boy to gasp and make some noise of disgust.

"You need me to leave and let you guys, uh, finish whatever you're doing?" the Asian boy asked, making Zack laugh.

"It's cool, we didn't do anything," Zack said, face turned to the door now as though that would make Lawrence hear better.

"Want to join us?" Freddy asked in the most seductive voice he could musted. Zack laughed into Freddy's shoulder at this, poking him in the ribs as if to say "play nice."

"Your moms want to remind you of the rules or something. I'm going now," he said. Freddy tried his hardest not to laugh out loud at the sound of the quickly shuffling feet retreat hastily from the room before collapsing in a fit of giggles against Zack's chest.

"That was so funny," Freddy gasped, not forgetting to smell how great Zack smelled. Even all sweaty. Especially sweaty because of the memories and mmm.

"You should be nice to Larry," Zack said, but he was laughing too, so Freddy knew he wasn't in trouble or anything.

"Jesus, since when are you all 'play nice with everybody'?" Freddy asked as he looked up, still grinning from ear to ear, making no move to disentangle himself.

"Somebody has to," Zack joked as he moved to give Freddy a quick kiss. Except Freddy wouldn't do with just a quick kiss, so then there was some tongue and some sighing and some hardness and then there was Lawrence again, saying now they were in trouble and ew, and then they were out of the stall, giggling and blushing.

…………………

Freddy was pretty sure that, when normal rock bands went on tour, they stayed in a Hilton and partied hardy with Paris all night long as they snorted coke off of her nipples or whatever. At the very least, they would at least end up at a hotel with more than two floors and a suite of some sort that didn't just mean one very large bed rather than two very small beds. But, as history told him, when School of Rock went on tour, they stayed at The Ramada in two cramped rooms: one for the boys and one for the girls. As The Rules, verbally given to Freddy and Zack before the tour began, stated, Lawrence was to sleep in one bed, Zack in the other bed, and Freddy got to sleep in a cot beside Lawrence's bed, not Zack's. But as Lawrence didn't care what they did as long as he didn't have to hear or see it, What Happened was Lawrence got one bed and Zack and Freddy spooned in the other.

It wasn't like Freddy didn't want to have frisky, wild sex with Zack every night before a show, because as far as he was concerned this would probably help their performances, but Zack decided to be polite to Lawrence. So instead they usually ended up spooning and whispering to each other late into the night. Which wasn't exactly sex, but sometimes they would make out so it was almost the same.

Except that night, at almost-one, Summer and Katie knocked on the door in their bikinis and announced they were going to the pool and the other two were welcome to come.

The pool had closed almost two hours before, but with some creativity they pushed Katie over the tall fence and she opened the door for them. Summer dipped her toe into the pool and squealed, shaking the cold water off of her foot as Katie laughed and held the shorter girl up.

"Hot tub?" Freddy suggested, squeezing Zack's side in anticipation. Mmm, hot steam, hot girls and a hot boy. And Lawrence was pretty cute, Freddy guessed, but ew, ew, ew, and more ew.

"Fuck yeah," Zack said and the two ran to the smaller, circular opening in the ground. Freddy climbed in quickly and sat down in the intense heat. He gasped as the steam rolled over him, so much nicer than the hot, sticky seats. This was relaxing and made his brain shut off as he closed his eyes and rested his head on the cold tile that surrounded the hot tub.

"I vote we go in hot tubs every night," Katie said from somewhere to the left of Freddy. He opened his eyes, unwilling to miss the sight of two sets of floating boobies.

"Agreed," Freddy, Zack, Lawrence and Summer all said in unison, causing loud giggles and snorts to erupt from the entire hot tub.

"How many more weeks, Summer?" Freddy asked, his hand now rubbing against Zack's leg.

"Four," she said, and Freddy didn't miss the bitterness in her voice, making his brain do a little victory dance. Even the fucking manager wasn't having as fun as time as she thought she would.

They sat in silence, the only sound the every once in awhile splashing from one of them moving around a bit.

"It's three in the morning," Katie said after awhile, and they all murmured in a silent agreement that, yeah, it was about time to get out of the hot tub.

Freddy's eyes kept closed as the feet splashed past him, making little squishing noises as they all ran for the gate. Summer began to ask why Freddy and Zack hadn't gotten up until Katie shushed her and they rushed out the gate, the padding of their feet letting Freddy know they were running.

More splashing occurred and when Freddy opened his eyes, it was like Christmas, with a pretty, wet boy on his lap, grinning.

"Let's make out," Zack whispered, hands moving down to play with the waistband of Freddy's bathing suit. And there was that hardness again.

"Duh," Freddy whispered back as he moved his head to Zack's, moving his mouth against his boyfriend's. And as Zack moved against him and as Freddy's tension wore away and as the water splashing onto the tiles grew, Freddy realized that maybe he could make it through these next four weeks, as long as they were all together.


End file.
